So Many Ways to Drown
by Meredith T. Tasaki
Summary: Written for flashfic; major character death. Dr. Lawrence Evans was going to end his day early by pitching himself forward into the cold alien sea. But he didn't know that yet.


So Many Ways to Drown

Summary: Dr. Lawrence Evans was going to end his day early by pitching himself forward into the cold alien sea. But he didn't know that yet.

Rating: PG at most

Warnings: Character death. And not just OC death, either. You've been amply warned.

(-)

Dr. Lawrence Evans was going to end his day early by pitching himself forward into the cold alien sea. But he didn't know that yet.

In fact, he began his day smiling-- well, after he'd got his cup of coffee, at least. He didn't think the time he spent technically awake before his first cup of coffee really counted as part of his day. In fact, both he and anyone who was unfortunate enough to run into him before that first cup generally preferred to forget about that period of time altogether.

He rather liked his job. Botany wasn't exactly the most exciting field to be in on Atlantis, but then again, their department also had the lowest deathrate, and that was a compromise he was more than willing to make. Growing things; life. Things that couldn't attack you. Just nurturing green things into growth. It wasn't as flashy as, say, Dr. McKay's job, and he'd been known to deride them mercilessly for that fact, but it _was_ real science, damn it, and he wouldn't trade it for the world.

Still, McKay was a decent enough man, and Lawrence knew damn well they wouldn't be alive without him, so he was willing to forgive the man his elitism. Besides, since he'd started dating Dr. Brown, practically all of the flack had been redirected to zoology.

And there was _coffee_, so all was right with the world. He walked into the lab with a smile on his face.

Ah, the balka trees' flowers had gone, he noticed. He'd thought they couldn't last much longer. Still, they'd been nice while they lasted-- thick clouds of crimson blossoms coating every branch, vibrant and delicate, almost translucent if you looked at one petal on its own. It was the sheer masses of them that gave them the color, and he would miss that. Still: there was always another year.

"And would you look at that," he murmured, noticing something under the tree. Katie and Dr. McKay, half-covered in the fallen petals; Katie had said they'd had a date, and apparently she'd taken him here. It wasn't often you saw that man quiet. But there he was, and she was leaning against him, and all the masses of petals made his hands itch for a camera. But McKay would, no doubt, kill him.

The petals had drifted yards away from the trees-- probably there was an air circulation system in here; he should probably ask about that-- little splotches of crimson, none bigger than a dime.

"Aah! _Dios_," said Helena; he looked up to see her steadying herself against the doorframe. "Those damn red flowers. It looks like blood that has spattered."

Helena had never liked those trees; she didn't really like anything red, these days. Something on that mission, six weeks ago. Botany might be the safest department, but that didn't make it _safe_. Helena had survived. As he recalled, one of the soldiers hadn't.

"I think it's pretty," he said, and shrugged. "And the fragrance... it's even stronger, isn't it?" He picked up one of the larger petals and held it to his nose.

"Well... that is nice, yes," Helena said, with a grudging shrug. "It is a nice smell... Lawrence?"

When he'd put the petal to his nose, he'd had a strangely hard time pulling it away. Was there sap on the thing? It seemed to _stick_--

He closed his other nostril and blew as hard as he could.

"Ah, Lawrence, no one needed to see that!" Helena cried. Somehow she'd really taken to that idiom, often even using it appropriately.

"The hell?" he said, trying to get the petal off of his fingers. It wasn't like superglue-- it could be done-- but it took a little effort. But if you could see the petals being blown by the air--

_Superglue_. Of course. He dipped a finger in his coffee and spread a thin film of moisture on the counter, then blew a petal onto it. "Apparently something in these sticks to anything moist." He demonstrated by trying to pull the petal off of the table. It ripped in half.

"Huh." Helena came to peer at it more closely. "Did it do that before?"

"Not that I know of. Presumably something changes in them after, or precipitating, their fall... Helena?"

Helena was smoothing a petal in between two fingers, staring at a spot about a foot away from his head with a look of abject horror slowly spreading across her face. "Like plastic, these feel, like shopping bag-- permeable?"

"What?"

"Permeable?"

"To what?"

"Lawrence, _anything moist_!" she cried, and turned around, making her way as quickly and carefully as she could to--

--the balka trees-- no, to the people underneath them-- because the petals were thin, and many were tiny, and no, almost certainly _not_ permeable, and there were _masses_ of them, and if they hadn't started falling yet-- if they'd been asleep when they started falling--

He followed her, quickly, even though it couldn't be possible, could it? You'd wake up-- you'd feel them going down, you'd wake up--

He didn't know where exactly it was you were supposed to feel for a pulse on somebody's neck, but that didn't matter, because Dr. McKay's neck was cool.

There was a festival around the balka trees, they'd told him. When the blooms began, a festival and viewing, not unlike the _sakura_ celebrations in Japan. A week later, as the blooms fell, three days of contemplation. To be carried out _inside_. Away from the falling flowers.

"Oh, god," he said. "God."

"Lawrence," said Helena, and grabbed his arm. "We must quarrantine-- we must leave--"

"I didn't see it," he said, and let her drag him away. "Three days of contemplation. Indoors. I didn't _see_ it. How could I not have SEEN it!"

"You could not have known," she said, voice choked with tears and petals, pushing him down against the hallway wall. "They did not tell you. You could not have known." She doubled over, coughing-- apparently they'd stirred up enough petals to--

"Never tell him I said this," Dr. Zelenka had said, more than a little drunk, at a holiday celebration, "but I would kill not to have his job. They ask the impossible of him-- of all of us, but he is the one who is there; he is the buffer. He functions, while they yell at him. It is secretly astonishing. I could maybe do most of it. I do not, I do not, ever want to. Hopefully he will live forever like the evil crone he is."

"We must call--" said Helena, and started coughing again.

So many crises they'd been through, and this last one-- every ten minutes, another catastrophe-- they should be dead, thirty times over, and McKay was one of the main reasons they weren't.

And he'd just killed him.

And _Katie_--

"Lawrence!" Helena cried. "We must call-- Doctor and Carter and-- Lawrence, we must _call_--"

_Katie_...

"Lawrence," said Helena, and tears were running down her face. "I can't-- you must--"

_We're going to drown, now. One way or another. There are so many ways. Petals and seawater and terror and despair._

Lawrence activated his radio with shaking hands, and knew how he would end his day.


End file.
